Back when Chris Dent and I started Blue Oxen Associates, we often referred to something called the The Blue Oxen Way. It was something that we both understood and recognized, but that we never actually articulated. Over the years, I tried to rectify this, and I generated pages and pages of notes (including three years worth of rambling blog posts) in the process, to no avail. (LVU)

Recently, Chris articulated his visions for “Wiki Everywhere,” where he referenced some of our early conversations. As I read it, I relived many of these discussions, and suddenly, it all clicked for me. (LVV)

The essence of The Blue Oxen Way can be boiled down into three ideas, each of which form the framework for our entire philosophy about collaboration: (LVW)

Much of the messiness of the collaborative process can actually be attributed to lack of Shared Language. Great collaborative design accounts for this rather than wishing it away, which is how most of us deal with it. (LW2)

If Shared Language is the tie that binds, then being Less Dumb is the state that we are all striving to reach. Why are we playing this game in the first place? To be Less Dumb, of course! As you go to bed every night, if you can’t look in the mirror and say, “Today, I became Less Dumb,” then you’re not doing your job. (LW5)

Less Dumb is the negative framing of “augmentation,” but it sounds a heckuva lot better, and it embodies the same philosophy. Tools should make people Less Dumb. Processes should make people Less Dumb. How do we measure collaboration? One way is to see if we’re Less Dumb in the process. (LW6)

That’s obvious, you say? If it’s so obvious, why do most tools and processes make us More Dumb rather than Less Dumb? And why are we so often willing to live with that? It may sound obvious, but are we really paying enough attention to this? (LW7)

With Less Dumb and Shared Language (as embodied by the Squirm Test), we have our target and the glue that keeps us together. Our process — the way we get to our target — is bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is building on top of things that already exist, then building on top of that. (The notion of bootstrapping is also the reason why we called ourselvesBlue Oxen Associates.) (LW9)

The most vivid images of my best experiences collaborating have to do with movement — my actions resulting in other people’s actions, which result in even more actions, which inspire me to act further. This is bootstrapping at its best. (LWA)

Purple Numbers are ultimately about building ideas on top of pre-existing ideas — knowledge synthesis (i.e. becoming Less Dumb) by reusing existing ideas. Also known as bootstrapping. (LWB)